Party Alignment and Resource Allocation in Pre-electoral Coalition Settings

• In Event: Local-level Policy and Resource Variation: Political Origins and Consequences

Abstract

Electoral coalitions between political parties in Proportional Representation systems have received extensive attention in the literature, but their role in Majoritarian/Presidential systems has been largely overlooked. However, coalitions in these two systems can look significantly different, often formed by non-contiguous parties in the political spectrum. This paper studies pre-electoral coalitions in Mexico who (1) compete for Executive branch positions, (2) are formed by non-contiguous parties and (3) are formed prior to election day. These coalitions have won elections at the state and municipal level. This phenomenon raises the following question: How does electing a pre-electoral coalition government affect resource allocation to that state or municipality? Specifically, I test the hypothesis that the asymmetry in party alignment between the party control of upper levels of government (national or state level) and pre-electoral coalitions in power at lower levels of government (state or municipality level) will create incentives for upper levels of government to decrease the amount of resources allocated to coalition-controlled states or municipalities relative to those states or municipalities with full party alignment. To test this hypothesis, I use Generalized Differences-in-Differences with a matched dataset that combines Mexican data on municipality- and state- level income and expenses to municipality- and state- level election results between 1989 and 2017. The analysis presents evidence that states under the pre-electoral coalition control receive less resources from the federal government compared to states with perfect alignment (PAN in presidency and governor). Areas like economic development, education, health and infrastructure (Ramo 33) are the ones with the biggest drop. At the municipal level, the analysis shows mixed results when the pre-electoral coalition is in power at the municipal level and there is perfect alignment at the state level (PAN in presidency and governor). Further analysis of these specific categories will disentangle a more specific effect that pre-electoral coalitions will have in party alignment and resource allocation.

Author

• Miguel Maria Garza Casado, The Ohio State University